


But then he saw the scales.

by LunnVic



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Haikyuu!! Fantasy Exchange, M/M, Mermaid!Oikawa, human!Iwaizumi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 05:07:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18793612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunnVic/pseuds/LunnVic
Summary: And then there was the endless black. Looking back at him, right in the eye, sticky and poisonous and killing every breathing creature that lived in the sea. Hajime remembered the beach just the day before, golden and turquoise. Now, silver and black. Black.-Or how an oil spill brought Iwaizumi and Oikawa together.





	But then he saw the scales.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Masquerabiandays](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masquerabiandays/gifts).



> This is my piece for the mini fantasy exchange! Thank you [Papaveri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Papaveri) for helping me with my English.
> 
> Hope you all like it <3

It wasn’t a pretty day. The beach never looked beautiful after a storm, not when the sky was still stained with that gray Hajime hated so much. And it was cold and windy and dirty. Remains of seaweed and humid wood had been plucked out from the bottom of the sea, making the coast look like a war zone. Or a cemetery - more like a cemetery, now that he looked closer, onto the mutilated starfish and silvery scales like parasites on the beach.

And then there was the endless black. Looking back at him, right in the eye, sticky and poisonous and killing every breathing creature that lived in the sea. Hajime remembered the beach just the day before, golden and turquoise. Now, silver and black. Black.

At least Hajime wasn’t alone. There were dozens of volunteers who, like him, had run faster than the wind to get to the beach to start cleaning. Matsukawa waved at him from a few meters away, hands already inside those white gloves that looked so wrong, but Hajime turned around and started walking in the opposite direction. His mind was jammed in one thought: the cave. The cave. The cave.

The cave wasn’t a cave, not really. It was just an incredible tiny bay hidden inside a rock formation that looked like a dome. His favorite place in the world, as its beach was only reachable by swimming. Hajime knew he was going to find it drowned under the black tide, and that he wasn’t ready for it, and that he absolutely didn’t mind if the oil tainted his shorts or shirt.

But, above all, he sure didn’t expect to find such a creature on the bay.

At first he thought it was human, for the way its back arched, trembling muscles trying to get its body out of the sea with the force of the past storm. But then he saw the scales, and the fins, and the gills, and… and were those fish bones? He stopped dead where he was, and maybe the creature was dead, too. He meant the mermaid, of course. The one that was still fighting for air, long black tendrils falling from its silvery skin, as if they were sticky chains that dragged it back to the ocean. Hajime’s stomach churned when the creature threw up black.

Hajime didn’t know what to do, so he chose to take one step back, ready to get out of there without being seen. However, the sea didn’t play along, and something in the water warned the monster about him. And that was when the (oh god, he was right, it was a) mermaid turned around and looked him in the eye.

“Stay away!” the creature said, or maybe that was what Hajime though it said. After all, the Japanese language sure wasn’t made for teeth like those. If those could be called teeth and not fangs.

“I won’t,” he answered, quick, but he was too close to ignore the greasy black dripping from his (his?) gills. It was almost painful to watch. “Need some help?”

The mermaid _laughed._ And, okay, maybe it was full of cynicism and disdain, but it was a laugh. Hajime frowned while the creature proceeded to ignore him, sinking his webbed claws in his own skin to rip off the black layer that was eating it. That didn’t work, of course, and Hajime had been called a brute enough times to recognize a peer. So he frowned even more and walked towards the mermaid, finally getting out of the water and planting his feet on land. The mermaid wasn’t so lucky: his gills ached to go back to the sea, redder as anything Hajime had ever seen, but the water wasn’t a safe place anymore.

“Let me…”

The creature hissed at him. The fangs were white (much too white for a menace so dark), and his eyes, now that he was closer, were the color of driftwood. His hair shared the tone, but it was messy and stiffened under the black that soiled it. Hajime had heard stories about mermaids, and they made it clear that they were intelligent enough to stay away from oil tankers. Not this one, though.

“Don’t you dare hiss at me,” he heard himself say. “You’re the one covered in oil and I’m the one who’s equipped for removing it.”

“Don’t,” the mermaid answered, his voice raspy and raucous. “Need. Help.”

It sounded as if the words were scratching his throat. Maybe they were.

Hajime waited one, two, three seconds before the mermaid seemed to give up. He fell over the sand with a low grunt, but his long (long, long) tail was still on the sea. Hajime wanted to think that he couldn’t see the end of it because the water was darker that day, but he knew that wasn’t exactly the reason why.

“What waiting?,” the creature snapped. It took him a few seconds to understand the question. “Going help o no?”

“Not with that attitude,” Hajime said, but he complied, crouching by his side and starting to put on his own white gloves. The thing looked at them with apprehension and, truth be told, when he wasn’t showing his fangs he was kind of pretty. But Hajime didn’t have time to think about such things, so he started applying the olive oil he had brought with him in case some seagull needed it over the black patches near his eyes, the most dangerous zone. Because, sadly, it wasn’t the first time an oil ship had crashed against their coast. They were ready. They were angry. They were sad.

“You know?,” Hajime said, his gloves shiny with golden oil. “You were lucky.”

“ _I_ were lucky?,” repeated the mermaid, sardonic and skeptical.

“Yes. The ocean out there is full of oil, but not this bay. In fact, the only dirty thing here is you.”

The mermaid didn’t seem to like the word “dirty” because he wrinkled his nose in a gesture that shouldn’t look so good in a monster. Hajime managed not to laugh.

“I know you’re not gonna like this, but…”

The mermaid frowned.

“You better wait here hidden until we are done cleaning the oil spill or you will get it all over yourself again.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

He sighed, theatrically falling over the sand. Hajime didn’t know that mermaids could be this… flamboyant?

“How long?”

“I… don’t know. Maybe a month?”

The mermaid sighed _again_.

Ah. That was going to be a long, long month.


End file.
